Anna Karenina eBook

It was decided that they should go together the next
day. Levin told his wife that he believed she
wanted to go simply in order to be of use, agreed
that Marya Nikolaevna’s being with his brother
did not make her going improper, but he set off at
the bottom of his heart dissatisfied both with her
and with himself. He was dissatisfied with her
for being unable to make up her mind to let him go
when it was necessary (and how strange it was for
him to think that he, so lately hardly daring to believe
in such happiness as that she could love him—­now
was unhappy because she loved him too much!), and
he was dissatisfied with himself for not showing more
strength of will. Even greater was the feeling
of disagreement at the bottom of his heart as to her
not needing to consider the woman who was with his
brother, and he thought with horror of all the contingencies
they might meet with. The mere idea of his wife,
his Kitty, being in the same room with a common wench,
set him shuddering with horror and loathing.

Chapter 17

The hotel of the provincial town where Nikolay Levin
was lying ill was one of those provincial hotels which
are constructed on the newest model of modern improvements,
with the best intentions of cleanliness, comfort,
and even elegance, but owing to the public that patronizes
them, are with astounding rapidity transformed into
filthy taverns with a pretension of modern improvement
that only makes them worse than the old-fashioned,
honestly filthy hotels. This hotel had already
reached that stage, and the soldier in a filthy uniform
smoking in the entry, supposed to stand for a hall-porter,
and the cast-iron, slippery, dark, and disagreeable
staircase, and the free and easy waiter in a filthy
frock coat, and the common dining room with a dusty
bouquet of wax flowers adorning the table, and filth,
dust, and disorder everywhere, and at the same time
the sort of modern up-to-date self-complacent railway
uneasiness of this hotel, aroused a most painful feeling
in Levin after their fresh young life, especially
because the impression of falsity made by the hotel
was so out of keeping with what awaited them.

As is invariably the case, after they had been asked
at what price they wanted rooms, it appeared that
there was not one decent room for them; one decent
room had been taken by the inspector of railroads,
another by a lawyer from Moscow, a third by Princess
Astafieva from the country. There remained only
one filthy room, next to which they promised that
another should be empty by the evening. Feeling
angry with his wife because what he had expected had
come to pass, which was that at the moment of arrival,
when his heart throbbed with emotion and anxiety to
know how his brother was getting on, he should have
to be seeing after her, instead of rushing straight
to his brother, Levin conducted her to the room assigned
them.